Category Archives: life

on towel holders, formalities and melons

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On paper towel holders. Scoured the whole of Gumyoji, Bandobashi and Kannai for 100 yen shops but I still haven’t found the paper towel wooden holder I had in mind. Similar to this one, yes.

I bought one during my Japan stint last 2007 in a 100-yen shop but I just couldn’t find a wooden one now (they have the metal and plastic ones). I can buy in upscale malls but somehow I can’t accept that I am buying something that costs more when I can buy the same kind in a 100-yen shop (not all 100yen goodies are of good quality though). The one above sells at £3.49. So, the search continues…

On formalities. Now, whenever an acquaintance, say an office acquaintance you have only just met recently would ask you “how are you?” I think one would instantly reply, “i’m good” or “i’m ok” without really thinking about your current emotional or physical state. For some, the how-are-you question is more like the small talk that’s prelude to more small talk. You don’t really think about what you answer. Anyways, when you’re asked the how-are-you question, etiquette would make you ask the same question back. And if ever you encounter a person who deeply thinks about his/her answer to your how-are-you question and who may answer more than “i’m good” or “i’m ok”, do listen closely. True people like them are hard to find.

On latest craze. It’s the melon season. You can buy a perfectly-ripened-can-eat-immediately whole melon at 200yen. I was afraid to buy at first because I don’t know how to judge if it’s ripe already or not. I took the plunge. And it was worth it. Perfect for our 1st month celeb.

3 idiots

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Hubby and I were the early comers in Ric’s farewell party at Ryan’s pad last night. To wait for the others, Ryan made us watch the Indian movie “3 Idiots”. Once we got started, we almost didn’t notice people coming in anymore, hooked as we are with the movie. Halfway through the movie though, we had to stop as we already need to have our dinner.

It turned out that we just stopped right at the right moment. Hubby and I resumed watching it at home this evening. But less than 2 minutes into the movie and my eyes were already brimming with tears.

While watching it, I told hubby, “how I hate this movie”. Hate in such a way that you’d hate a movie that had made you cry in buckets, laugh your heart out loud and made you reflective what with numberous insights one can get from the movie. Ergo, translation for the “hate” is that I LOVE this movie to pieces.

The shoot location is SOOoo beautiful as well! Certainly a candidate for our honeymoon options. wink wink.

The whole day though, the song “Ahll izzz welll!!” was our LSS. Either hubby or me would shout “Ahll izzz welll!!” and then the other would immitate the sound of a whistle. haha. Quite a team, yes.

The movie made me hope though that there’d also be a Filipino movie soon that is as masterfully crafted, if not better. Well, sans the singing and dancing, if possible.

I wanted to embed the trailer here in our blog but the official trailers with the subtitles are not for embedding. Do watch the trailer here though.

Ja, “Pursue excellence, and success will follow you”.

Happy Birthday A!

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Hubby made me extremely happy on my birthday with how he prepared for it – gave me a bouquet of flowers & Godiva chocolates, went to shopping with me and had dinner at a posh French-Japanese fusion restaurant (the kind that takes off your coat off you and puts it back on after your dinner). And now that it’s his turn, I wanted to make it extra special as well.

First off, a meal on a very good resto would be nice. I had in mind Quintessence – a Michelin 3-star-rated French resto in Tokyo. But their phone is like forever busy! After more than an hour of trying, I tried to call their other number – the one designated for confirmation of bookings. And, well, naturally, I was told they don’t accept bookings made through that number. It has to be the other number. But she did cater to my request though – to inquire if they still have a table available for lunch on May 21st. After some checking, the reply: their Saturday lunch is fully booked till July! OMG. I tried 3-star Joel Robuchon (only La Table and Atelier, both 2 stars, serves lunch) and as expected, they’re also fully booked already. I checked out the Tokyo Michelin list; not all in the list is open for lunch. It has to be lunch for two reasons: one, these Michelin rated restos are so expensive, I can only swallow the price for lunch and second, lunch is most convenient for the sched of activities I had in mind for Atsushi’s birthday.

Anyways, after a number of calls, I was able to book for Modern Japanese Esaki. See our review for Esaki on my goodfood blog.

Birthday boy in Esaki.

The Aoyama district has a lot of interesting architecture, both traditional and modern. But we just have to stop at this non-negotiable:

hubby in his favorite place - the bookstore

Anyways, second stop for the day – Rikugien via Komagome Station.

It’s a rich park, if I may judge by how the whole park is walled.

We’re on the brink of the start of summer hence the place was all lush green. Would love to return here on different seasons.

The boon of these goens are the teahouses that sometimes offer pseudo tea ceremonies or even just plainly sell traditional green tea and  sweets. This was one of my main reason for bringing Atsushi here actually – for us to share this tea break.

The other was just for us to simply share a peaceful walk along the greeneries. And have a healthy talk and discussion, besides. I love those walks. 🙂

And of course, we just have to have a traditional picture.

Next stop was back in Yokohama – watch Pirates of the Carribean on the uber posh Colette Mare.Colette Mare has to be posh and really comfortable so that their tickets of 2000yen each is justified. Pirates was cool! Just the right movie for a birthday celebration. Hubby wanted to watch Black Swan as well but knowing how distrubed I was when I watched it, it just wasn’t a birthday sort of movie hence we decided to watch it the following day instead.

By the way, Hubby and I are aiming to have our house smell as good as Colette Mare does. Goodluck!

My birthday present. It’s just a few hundred yen I know. But I figure I ought to start replacing Hubby’s plants that I killed by not watering them more often. Apparently, the water vapor in the air can’t keep them alive. I was so positive the water vapor theory would work. 😀

And to cap the day off, we toasted Hubby’s birthday with the champagne that Maha gave us as her wedding/housewarming gift to us. I love Moet and Chandon! Glad it was with a chill box that we can re-use for later! We don’t have champagne/wine glasses at home yet so we used the mugs that the Hamakawa-sans gave away for their wedding. Tee-hee!

We also finished off the other red wine bottle that Maha brought during our housewarming. End result, I was blabbering coñotic English the rest of the night. 😛

Happy Birthday A!

April 30

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I can`t believe it`s only been 8 days after our wedding. It`s been a flurry of activities since then and that there were many other exciting things to attend to that hubby and I can only get snippets of time to reflect on how our day went. Good thing though that we were able to meet some of our friends and also with Erika & EJ hence we somehow learned  (and had good laughs besides) a lot of other stories that evolved during the wedding.  Seeing pictures posted by friends makes me all hoity-toity. It warms me up and makes me giggle whenever I hear (or read from emails and texts) comments and praises on how beautiful and successful our wedding has been. This despite the terrible migraine I had just right after the ceremony and from then onwards. It was so terrible I threw up twice, before and after the reception. When Kat told me she was surprised with this since it wasn`t obvious at all I had the migraine when we had our grand entrance during the reception, I relaxed. At least, my migraine really didn`t ruin our day.

Will try to keep our wedsite updated about the wedding stories in the soonest possible time. For now though, we have to commence cleaning up/organizing our house for the upcoming housewarming and Atsushi`s advance birthday party that we`re throwing next weekend for some of our friends/ex-colleagues.

emotionally touched

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Was browsing Youtube for the links of our song picks for our SDE and cinematic highlights when I decided to browse the video for the Flash Mob wedding I chanced upon months ago.

Wasn’t prepared with the intense emotions that washed over me. Well, probably my getting emotional has got a lot to do with friends (even part of the entourage) cancelling in the last minute due to unavoidable circumstances and also with friends who are very kind enough to fill in even at late notice; but the moment I saw the groom tenderly kiss the bride BEFORE they walked their makeshift aisle in this flash mob wedding, there was just no stopping the tears.

This flash mob wedding was so amazing in that they would never have pulled it off without the help of their friends and family. This is so true with every weddings.

But then the most remarkable in this wedding is that even when it was really just a VERY short wedding, the love between the groom and bride was most evident, and I think that part touched me the most. See how the groom tried to warm up his bride’s arm – everybody were wearing their coats whilst the bride has to wear a tube (her dress is lovely by the way).

And of course it comes in threes. What I loved as well in this flash mob wedding are the rabbi’s words that rings with wisdom.

Who can then blame me for being emotional? 🙂

And oh! All weddings should come with good music. Albeit short, the flash wedding has got good singers. Love it.